there is a darkness deep in you
by pencilsinabag
Summary: She nurses the spot of heat in her chest cavity, its hollowness burning her from the inside out. She's drowning in phoenix-fed flames and she longs for slim fingers to reach for her. She is Myka, but she is not.
1. there is a darkness deep in you

As always, LJ is better. Also, don't own anything, but then I wouldn't be on here if I did, would I?

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She nurses the spot of heat in her chest cavity, its hollowness burning her from the inside out. She's drowning in phoenix-fed flames and she longs for slim fingers to reach for her. She is Myka, but she is not. She is not the woman Pete love(d)s, the woman Claudia look(ed)s up to. She is not the agent Artie was proud of.

She dreams in black and white, lace and silk covering behind her eyes, a dark gaze smiling coyly back at her.

A pale hand reaches out to her and Myka slaps it away; she can't bear to look up into those dark eyes she hates (loves) and fall in two again.

The dream-Myka whimpers, reaching back for those pale fingers, remembering nights spent seeing clouds and stars behind her eyelids as Helena laughs breathlessly in her ear. Dream-Myka's eyes blur, and Myka wakes up, sobs building in her throat. She grips her cool sheets desperately, and she doesn't make a sound.

Once, there would have been someone to hold her close, someone who would have been tangled in her sheets, smiling sleepily up at her.

There is a darkness to her, a black heat she nurses with every cool slide of tears slipping free. She sees a bright smile and thinks only of the madness that must have lurked behind those laughing eyes. She sees thin fingers tapping away at a keyboard, remembering sucking slim fingers into her mouth, smiling up at Helena on half-forgotten nights, but thinks only of those cool fingers she wrapped around hers, aiming the barrel of Helena's gun to her head, begging "_Kill me now._"

_This half life_, she thinks,_ and_ _you were all I wanted and you threw me to the ground with little more then a squeeze on a trigger. How do I live now?_

"This stupid thing," she murmurs to the air, "This stupid—stupid—"

Her hands grip at her chest, and all she feels is that hole. Artie dragged her back, kicking and screaming, but she lost something when Helena was taken, and she doesn't know how to get it back. She is inflamed with love, but all she feels is anger/hurt/betrayal/fury/_pain_. She doesn't know how to hold Helena close anymore, can't imagine doing so even if she got the chance.

She keeps her gun with her always now, fingering the trigger guard and wondering what she would have done if Helena had never pulled the trigger.


	2. a frightening magic i cling to

She wakens, dark eyes wild and stands in her tiny (four walls, a bed; is there a door? I don't know I don't know, is there) room and curls into herself. Her nails are digging into her arms but she does not feel its sting, its itch.

(all she remembers is laughter bubbling out of (her lovers) lips, cold nights ripe with warmth and love (and lust; there is always lust) and the heat of (her; the only one she can see) fingers twisting, mirth and happiness staining her mind; _I love you I love you_ she babbles still. The dark of her (I see only you) eyes, so clear in the light, so dark in the night, smile and Myka smiles back at her; _I love you too_.)

I. am. not. crazy. she scrawls on the walls and her fingers are sore; they do not give her a pen to write so she traces insanity's voice on the walls. The screams echoing from other rooms makes her want to fall, _I am not crazy_, she begs, but the stain on her soul keeps proving her wrong. (why else would she ever aim a gun at her beloved's head?)

_We are the broken ones,_ she whispers to the stale air, _we are locked up and we never see THOSE WE LOVE AGAIN._

Helena falters, nails scrambling into her skin. _I want I want I want_. She looks around at the four white walls. and. she. does. not. make. a. sound. She falls to the ground, hands digging into the careful white of the carpet they saw fit to place in her room. Insanity is whispering in her ear, _the world is not fit for her, not fit for her, not fit for her,_ the whisper-soft voice static in her mind. (you grate; you hurt; get out get out get out) Her dark eyes stare at walls, blank white, pure white, and she sees only the vibrant red of Christina's blood staining her mind, her tiny daughter so much flesh, so much blood, _who knew such a little body could hold so much blood_, and she. wants. to. scream.

Scream and scream and scream and.

_I love you_, she wants to say, _I love you I love you_ _I love you, _on repeat like a song she can't get out of her head, _but who is she talking about_.

_This madness_, she thinks, _this damn thing_. She has her lucid moments, when she looks clear eyed at the shock of blackness in the corner of her room, and turns away. She huddles in the corner, and the white walls remain white walls.

(she lies inside white-washed walls and thinks of days when the colors were vibrant and the only white she knew was the gleam of Myka's smile.)

(she hates these moments the most)

But the darkness always comes back, covering her mind; she is broken, shards of redwhiteblackgreengreengreen stabbing at her and all she sees is the clarity of Myka's eyes, angry angry (and so very sad) forcing a gun to her head, _you kill me now_, (but who was the mad one here then?)

_Myka Christina Myka Myka Myka_ her heart babbles, _Christina Christina Christina_.

She wants she wants, but the (regents, caretakers) don't give her what she wants and all she wants is her love(s) the cool grip of a pen (quill, she'd told Myka, goose feather) and the scratch of pen nib to paper, stories like so many colors behind her eyelids, magic simply waiting to happen.

(so many colors h.g wells remembers, the vibrancy of a book gleaming in her hand, and she never expected anything would ever mean more to her then those ideas)

Myka remains though; she is haunted by Myka's curls, remembering coming apart to Myka, curls a curtain around them. She remembers the look of lovemirth_happiness_ and all Helena wants (want; v. to feel a need or a desire for; wish for) is Myka looking at her with so much love.

But want is tangled in her mind, strings covering every corner; want want want but no matter how much she wants, she cannot have.

(there was insanity then, love bleeding to madness; she turned from the safety of Myka's arms and it all ended staring down the barrel of her gun, Myka crazed with (angergrief) and. _where did we go wrong_.)

When Helena wakes up, her arms are painted in red, skin stinging; her nails are tinged red.


End file.
